1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of determining the error rate of a received digital signal and, more particularly, a method of determining the byte error rate (ByER) of such a signal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In digital data communication systems, a sequence of bits (i.e., a signal comprising binary digits) originates from a transmitter and is transmitted through a communications channel to a receiver. If the communication channel were perfect, the sequence of bits received at the receiver would be identical to the transmitted data bits. However, communications channels are not perfect and, because of the presence of noise and other spurious signals, the received data may very well not be the same as the transmitted data. Accordingly, systems have been designed to detect and correct errors occurring in sequences of received data. Such systems determine if some of the bits of the received data differ from the transmitted data, and thereafter correct the error or errors.
There are many commercially available arrangements for monitoring the received bit stream and providing error correction, for one bit at a time. Indeed, many systems list as a criteria a maximum bit error rate (BER) as one specification to monitor system performance. However, as the systems evolve and the needs of the designers change, it is becoming more desirable to also monitor and correct for "byte" errors, where a "byte" is commonly defined as a string of eight bits. A need remains in the art, therefore, for a relatively simple way for monitoring the byte error rate of a digital communication system.